For these girls and knaves small wines are best."
In all probability, the sack of Shakspeare was very much allied to, if not precisely the same as, our sherry; for Falstaff says, "You rogue! there is lime in this sack too; there is nothing but roguery to be found in villanous man; yet a coward is worse than sack with lime in it;" and we know that lime is used in the manufacture of sherry, in order to free it from a portion of malic and tartaric acids, and to assist in producing its dry quality. Sack is spoken of as late as 1717, in a parish register, which allows the minister a pint of it on the Lord's day, in the winter season; and Swift, writing in 1727, has the lines—
"As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die of his calling,
He stopped at the 'George' for a bottle of sack,
And promised to pay for it when he came back."
He was probably of the same opinion as the Elizabethan poet, who sang,
"Sacke will make the merry minde sad,
So will it make the melancholie glad.
If mirthe and sadnesse doth in sacke remain,